Mapping of magnetic basement in Central India from aeromagnetic data for scaling geology

The Central Indian region has a complex geology covering the Godavari Graben, the Bastar Craton (including the Chhattisgarh Basin), the Eastern Ghat Mobile Belt, the Mahanadi Graben and some part of the Deccan Trap, the northern Singhbhum Orogen and the eastern Dharwar Craton. The region is well covered by reconnaissance‐scale aeromagnetic data, analysed for the estimation of basement and shallow anomalous magnetic sources depth using scaling spectral method. The shallow magnetic anomalies are found to vary from 1 to 3 km, whereas magnetic basement depth values are found to vary from 2 to 7 km. The shallowest basement depth of 2 km corresponds to the Kanker granites, a part of the Bastar Craton, whereas the deepest basement depth of 7 km is for the Godavari Basin and the southeastern part of the Eastern Ghat Mobile Belt near the Parvatipuram Bobbili fault. The estimated basement depth values correlate well with the values found from earlier geophysical studies. The earlier geophysical studies are limited to few tectonic units, whereas our estimation provides detailed magnetic basement mapping in the region. The magnetic basement and shallow depth values in the region indicate complex tectonic, heterogeneity, and intrusive bodies at different depths, which can be attributed to different thermo‐tectonic processes since Precambrian.     

The major lightning regions and associated casualties over India

Natural Hazards - Lightning, a climate-related highly localized natural phenomenon, claims lives and damage properties. These losses could only be reduced by the identification of active seasons...     

An analysis of non-normal Markovian extremal droughts

In many arid and semi-arid environments of the world, years of extended droughts are not uncommon. The occurrence of a drought can be reflected by the deficiency of the rainfall or stream flow sequences below the long-term mean value, which is generally taken as the truncation level for the identification of the droughts. The commonly available statistics for the above processes are mean, coefficient of variation and the lag-one serial correlation coefficient, and at times some indication of the probability distribution function (pdf) of the sequences. The important elements of a drought phenomenon are the longest duration and the largest severity for a desired return period, which form a basis for designing facilities to meet exigencies arising as a result of droughts. The sequences of drought variable, such as annual rainfall or stream flow, may follow normal, log-normal or gamma distributions, and may evolve in a Markovian fashion and are bound to influence extremal values of the duration and severity. The effect of the aforesaid statistical parameters on the extremal drought durations and severity have been analysed in the present paper. A formula in terms of the extremal severity and the return period ‘T’ in years has been suggested in parallel to the flood frequency formula, commonly cited in the hydrological texts. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimation of mass and energy balance of glaciers using a distributed energy balance model over the Chandra river basin (Western Himalaya)

The ongoing glacier shrinking in the Himalayan region causes a significant threat to freshwater sustainability and associated future runoff. However, data on the spatial climatic contribution of glacier retreat is scanty in this region. To investigate the spatially distributed glacier surface energy and mass fluxes, a two-dimensional mass balance model was developed and applied to the selected glaciers of the Chandra basin, in the Upper Indus Basin, Western Himalaya. This model is driven by the remote sensing data and meteorological variables measured in the vicinity of the Chandra basin for six hydrological years (October 2013 to September 2019). The modelled variables were calibrated/validated with the in-situ observation from the Himansh station in the Chandra basin. We have derived air temperature (T_a ) spatially using the multivariate statistical approach, which indicates a relative error of 0.02–0.05°C with the observed data. Additionally, the relative error between the modelled and observed radiation fluxes was <10.0 W m⁻². Our study revealed that the Chandra basin glaciers have been losing its mass with a mean annual mass balance of −0.59 ± 0.12 m w.e. a⁻¹ for the six hydrological years. Results illustrated that the mean surface melt rate of the selected glaciers ranged from −5.1 to −2.5 m w.e. a⁻¹ that lies between 4500 and 5000 m a.s.l. The study revealed that the net radiation (R_N) contributes ~75% in total energy (F_M ) during the melt season while sensible heat (H_S) , latent heat (H_l) , and ground heat (H_G) fluxes shared 15%, 8%, and 2%, respectively. Sensitivity analysis of the energy balance components suggested that the mass balance is highly sensitive to albedo and surface radiations in the study area. Overall, the proposed model performed well for glacier-wide energy and mass balance estimation and confirms the utility of remote sensing data, which may help in reducing data scarcity in the upper reaches of the Himalayan region.     

Desertification Vulnerability Assessment Model for a Resource Rich Region: A Case Study of Bellary District,Karnataka, India

Desertification is a global challenge being experienced across countries irrespective of their levels of development. Desertification is a complex negative process involving both natural and human components in terms of their socio-economic attainments. Hence, for identification and assessment of the process, pattern, magnitude and possible impacts of desertification, a multi-disciplinary approach with inter-disciplinary framework of analysis is essential. This study has made such an attempt to develop a comprehensive desertification vulnerability assessment Model on the basis of multi-variate Principal Component Analysis along with the Geographic Information System framework by using natural and socio-economic resources data inputs from census, satellite data and other sources. Bellary district, located in a rapidly growing southern state of India, Karnataka which is afflicted with various natural and development issues such as droughts, backwardness, haphazard mining, over irrigation, and associated effects of land degradation, siltation and water pollution has been chosen for the study. The inter-disciplinary framework based desertification vulnerability assessment model has assessed that 1379.198 km² area (15.55%) of Bellary district is prone to desertification (based on the satellite data IRS LISS III data of Dec 2005, Feb 2006, March 2006 and April 2006). In addition, 3229.337 km² (36.40%) is under moderate vulnerability which is fragile. Hence, unless proper development intervention and conservation measures are taken well in advance, almost more than half of Bellary district (51.95%) will be vulnerable to desertification. Spatially, the talukas that are seriously affected and that require development intervention on high priority are: Sandur, Kudligi, Hospet and Bellary which are the prime talukas of the district.     

Variability and trends in runoff in the rivers of British Columbia's Coast and Insular Mountains

This study examines the 1914–2015 runoff trends and variability for 136 rivers draining British Columbia's Coast and Insular Mountains. Rivers are partitioned into eastward and westward flowing rivers based on flow direction from the Coast Mountains. Thus, eastward and westward runoff trends and influence of topography on runoff are explored. Our findings indicate that rivers flowing eastward to the Nechako and Chilcotin plateaus contribute the lowest annual runoff compared to westward rivers where runoff is high. Low interannual runoff variability is evident in westward rivers and their alpine watersheds, whereas eastward rivers exhibit high interannual runoff variability. On Vancouver Island, some of the rivers with the highest annual runoff exhibit high interannual variability. A significant (p < .05) negative correlation exists between mean annual runoff (R_m) and latitude, gauged area, mean elevation, and its corresponding coefficient of variation. However, a significant positive correlation was found between the glacierized area of mountainous regions and R_m. The mean coefficient of variation in annual runoff is significantly negatively correlated with latitude and glacierized area, but significantly positively correlated with longitude. Annual and seasonal runoff trend analyses of each river were performed for an early (1936–2015), a middle (1966–2015), and a late (1986–2015) period using the Mann–Kendall test. Trend analyses revealed a shift towards more positive detectable (signal‐to‐noise ratio > 1) trends in annual and seasonal runoff from the middle to the late period across the study domain. Most positive detectable seasonal runoff trends in the middle period occur in spring in glacierized westward rivers located >1,200 m, whereas in the late period, they all occur in fall and are regionally coherent around Vancouver Island and south coastal BC. Rivers draining eastward exhibit more positive trends over 1986–2015 compared to westward rivers. This study provides crucial information on the hydrology of mountain watersheds across British Columbia's coast in response to Pacific Decadal Oscillation phase changes, the elevational amplification of regional climate change, and their influences on precipitation and glacier retreat.     

Role of sediment in solute acquisition in the Himalayan glacier meltwater stream,Gangotri glacier,Uttarakhand, India

Low temperature in-stream solute acquisition in a glacial environment with very high suspended sediment is critical for downstream evolution of water chemistry. Present work is carried out on 18 km headwater reach from Gomukh (snout of the Gangotri glacier) to Gangotri along River Bhagirathi, India for understanding the hydrological processes controlling the solute acquisition in the glacial environment. This is the first attempt to conduct dissolution experiments with river bed sediments and meltwater considering different operating variables namely; contact time, seasonality, different sediment particle sizes, different sediment dose, effect of pH, wetting and crushing of bed sediments of the glacial stream. The role of sediment in low temperature solute acquisition process is characterized by sudden release of ions from the sediment in initial few seconds. Equilibrium time was observed to be 600 s (10 min). Further progressive increase in EC was observed from Gomukh to Gangotri, suggesting change in sediment surface characteristics/or source. Higher dissolution was observed from the bed sediments collected in June. It is found that the dissolution increases with increase in sediment doses but decreases with an increase in sediment particle size fraction. Higher solute acquisition was observed from crushed sediment because of an abundance of very fine particles having fresh, aggressive/reactive mineral surfaces which are capable of dissolution. The solute released from wetted sediment is significantly lower than the fresh sediment, which may be attributed to the destruction of microparticles adhering to mineral grains, the removal of fresh reactive surface sites, dissolution of rapidly weathered minerals such as calcite and evolution towards to equilibrium of the solution. Further, higher dissolution was observed with decrease in pH, which may be attributed to the availability of more hydrogen ion concentration of the solution, which favours more solute acquisition from sediment into meltwater.     

A class of solutions for anisotropic stars admitting conformal motion

We provide a new class of interior solutions for anisotropic stars admitting conformal motion. The Einstein’s field equations in this construction are solved for specific choices of the density/mass functions. We analyze the behavior of the model parameters like radial and transverse pressures, density and surface tension.     

Anomalous absorption in thioformaldehyde

Absorption against the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), called the anomalous absorption, is an unusual phenomenon. The transition 1₁₁–1₁₀ at 4.829 GHz of formaldehyde (H₂CO) was the first one showing the anomalous absorption. The c-C₃H₂ is the second molecule showing anomalous absorption through its transition 2₂₀–2₁₁ at 21.590 GHz. Structure of thioformaldehyde (H₂CS) is very similar to that of the H₂CO. Therefore, we have investigated about the physical conditions under which the transition 1₁₁– 1₁₀ at 1.0465 GHz of H₂CS would be found in anomalous absorption in cool cosmic objects. As in case of H₂CO, the anomalous absorption of 1₁₁–1₁₀ of H₂CS is found sensitive to the relative collisional rates and it requires that the collisional rate for the transition 1₁₁–2₁₁ must be smaller than that for the transition 1₁₀–2₁₂.